Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

brings you to our humble abode?”
    I sighed and slumped into a heavy leather chair. “Well, I tried.”
    “Yes, you did. Despite your best attempts at mutilation, my liver will live another day,” Savian said, groaning pitifully as he eased himself onto a long, low leather couch.
    Gabriel looked at May. “What’s wrong with him?”
    “Evidently Ysolde was trying to turn his testicles into warts.”
    “Eyebrows to warts, testicles to turnips,” I corrected wearily. I lifted a languid hand toward Savian. “Go ahead. Tell them. Ruin what remains of my life.”
    He ignored me, speaking to Gabriel. “I was sent to rescue a fair maiden and her small bundle of boyish joy from the clutches of a gang of murderous dragons. No one told me that the maiden had the strength of a dragon, and an unnatural interest in my balls.”
    “I have no interest in your balls. I never had an interest in your balls, other than wanting them to go away, preferably with you attached.”
    “Our clutches?” May said, looking appalled.
    “It’s not like it sounds,” I said hurriedly, before she and Gabriel were insulted.
    “Who hired you?” May asked Savian.
    “Man by the name of Gareth Hunt.”
    I glared at him, and his hand moved protectively over his crotch.
    “Why would your husband feel you needed rescuing?” Gabriel asked in a soft, completely misleading voice. The air positively crackled with anger.
    “You see what you’ve done? Are you happy now? Everyone is mad at me,” I told Savian.
    “When you go around threatening to smite people’s balls, I don’t blame them!”
    “Ysolde?” Gabriel asked, clearly expecting some sort of an explanation.
    “I’m going to remember you,” I told Savian before I turned to Gabriel. “Gareth called me a few days ago, and warned me that I was in danger if I continued to stay with you. I told him that you had been nothing but generous and attentive in your care of me while I was asleep, and even brought Brom to me, but he . . . well, Gareth is very single-minded. Once he gets an idea, he clings to it with the tenacity of a terrier with lockjaw. I assure you that I have absolutely no complaints about your hospitality, and I do not intend to be stolen away. That’s what I was doing when May found us. I was trying to get rid of this annoying man.”
    “I am roguishly charming, and not at all annoying!” Savian protested.
    May and Gabriel exchanged a loaded glance.
    “Fine, you’re the most charming man I’ve ever met. Now please consider yourself unemployed. You can keep whatever my husband paid you—he deserves to lose the money for doing something like this against my wishes.”
    “Since you are at a loose end,” Gabriel said to him, opening the door and gesturing, “perhaps I could speak to you about doing a little job for us. Ysolde believes she’s seen Baltic in town, and I’d like for you to find him.”
    “I’m not going to get my head bashed in again, am I?” Savian asked, grunting as he rolled off the couch and onto his feet. He slid me a glance as he followed Gabriel out of the room. “Or my liver ruptured?”
    The door closed quietly behind him.
    I looked at May. “You think he can find Baltic?”
    “He works as a thief taker for the L’au-dela,” she answered with a wry little twist to her lips. “That’s how I met him. But sometimes he freelances, and he’s a very good tracker. If anyone can find Baltic, Savian can. Are you going to be ready to go in an hour?”
    I nodded.
    “Good. We’ll all go down together. It should prove to be interesting, eh?”
    She left me with a little smile that made me wonder what she knew.
    “Oh,” I said three hours later as the car rounded one last gentle curve and cleared the willow and lime trees that formed a half circle in front of a magnificent house. “Oh, my. It’s . . .” Words simply failed me.
    “I know,” May said, sighing as she gazed upon the redbricked front of the Tudor mansion. “Isn’t it just? I would try to get it away from Kostya, but I suppose if anyone has a right to it, you do.”
    “It’s perfect,” I said, my face pressed to the window as I tried to take it all in. The house itself was perched on a gentle hill, a typical example of Tudor architecture, with a center square tower that rose with stately grace over the rest of the house, mullioned windows, stone quoins, and parapets that seemed to sweep upward to the sky. “Just . . .”
    “Perfect,” May finished the sentence,